13 July 2008

You Don't Joke 'Bout The Pope

12 19 15 8 16 - 5 K'ib 19 Sek G5

The Pope, or as Rev. Ivan Stang refers to him, "that old queen in Rome", is visting Australia this week on his "Blessin' The Colonies" tour, or whatever. Apparently, the Australian government has passed a new law stating that anyone protesting at the World Youth Day event, being held in Sydney, can be levied with a 5,500 Australian dollar fine. I'm not making this up.

I don't know about you, but this seems more than a bit draconian to me. I don't know if Australia ever had a "Bill Of Rights" added into their constitution--I think they still allow free speech, however...well, maybe until now. I hadn't realised Oz may be some sort of dictatorship. There's probably a money trail somewhere here--as Sydney will host about 250,000 tourists attending the events. The local politicians are probably eager to hoover up all that foreign spending money. Mustn't "annoy" the faithful.

I suppose a T-shirt with the slogan "Pope Go Homo"could be annoying to a dogmatic Catholic--but still, is that really 5,500 dollars worth of annoying? O.K., maybe planning to hand out condoms to the young Catholics was the final straw and the lawmakers felt they had to act to protect those vulnerable lambs from the "evils" of birth control. It's not as if they've got their own minds or anything...

As a Pope in the Discordian church, I expect protests when I arrive somewhere, especially from other Discordian Popes looking to excommunicate me. I don't mind people wearing "Eris Liberation Front" T-shirts or even mono-theists brandishing their regalia. It's all good fun, really. Perhaps the Catholic Church might see it that way sometime. 'Till then, though, steer well clear of the Popemobile with your sense of humour...it might cost ya!